dementor daycare
by to paint the unsaid
Summary: les and barty open a daycare center. they didn't think it would be that hard. were they ever wrong.


**dementor daycare**

 _a/n: the many people to blame for this fic know who they are._

As always, Les and Barty had barely gotten their daycare center opened for the day before the bell rang to signify the arrival of a parent there to drop off their child. And as always, the first ones to arrive were Ella and Thorfinn, along with little Draco.

Barty had been cutting strips of shiny paper for a craft, but when he saw the couple enter, he stood up to greet them. His adopted son, Severus, was much more interested in playing with Draco.

While the grown-ups talked, Sev held out some blocks and asked, "Wanna pway wif me, Dwaco?" The other boy agreed, and they sat on the floor stacking the blocks on top of each other, then knocking them down. "I couldn't tell you why they go to all that trouble," Ella said, observing the boys.

"We can only wonder," Les agreed as they watched Sev push over Draco's half-finished tower. Draco merely laughed and did the same in return.

"I see he's in good hands," As she spoke, Ella moved towards the door. "We'll be back around the usual time. Goodbye, Draco. Be good for aunt Les!"

"I will, mummy!" Draco promised.

Soon afterward, Lils arrived with little Harry, who joined the boys with their blocks, and Tassie brought Newt, clutching a plush niffler. He tried to hide behind his mother, and when Tassie finally managed to remove him he began to cry, but Les calmed him by asking him to introduce her to the niffler.

As she and Barty picked up the shiny strips Newt claimed the niffler had gotten into, the bell rang again. This time, it was Dragon. With her were Credence, who Les was slightly concerned to see had brought Nagini, and a little boy with a red streak in his hair that she recognized as Scabior, who sometimes played with Sev.

"Sorry we're running a bit late," said Dragon, letting go of Scabior's hand and enabling him to help Newt scatter the shiny paper. "Creeds had a bit of a rough night, but he should be fine as long as he's not separated from Nagini."

Seeing the look on Les's face, she continued, "Not to worry. She has been taught never to attack friends of Credence. We won't need to worry about bites."

She left then, and as she'd said Nagini remained protective yet kept her teeth away from the children, but it wasn't entirely true that there was no need to worry about bites. For minutes later Maisie and Amycus came through the door with Alecto, who was rather prone to biting.

"Good morning," Les told them, smiling and silently hoping Alecto wouldn't decide to greet her with a puncture wound. "How's she doing?"

"Alecto has been just lovely these days," said Maisie, which probably meant "Alecto has been refusing to go to sleep and yesterday she put shiny finger paint all over the walls."

"Still not particularly interested in licking, though," Amycus said. He sounded a little disappointed, but Les knew he wasn't that offended by it.

Maisie and Amycus gave Les a bag containing a few things they thought Alecto might need, then said their goodbyes and left. Alecto fished a small plastic bag of long grain rice out of the supplies and sat on the floor playing with it.

At least she wasn't biting people.

-x-

Now that all the regulars had arrived, Barty decided it was a good time to hold circle time. Les convinced the small boys to stop causing destruction and come sit down. Her fiance, however, was tasked with Credence, who preferred to stay in his corner, and Alecto, who was busy playing with her rice.

When informed Nagini could join the circle, Credence agreed to it, but Alecto wasn't so easy.

"Alecto," Barty told her. "it's time to put the rice away. Now is not rice time."

"But I'm not done with it." Alecto continued stacking grains of rice. Barty vaguely wondered how she got them to stay upright.

"You can play with it again later," Barty wheedled.

"I don't want to play with it later. I want to play with it now."

Barty had no patience for this kind of thing, and promptly took the rice from Alecto. Almost immediately she threw a tantrum, assaulting the tiles below as she wailed, "But I want it!"

More to quiet Alecto than to comfort her, Les offered a chew toy. Alecto's tears subsided as she sat up, wiped her nose on Les's sleeve, and began nibbling the chew toy.

"And let that serve as a lesson to you," she told the children as she led Alecto over to the circle and sat her down. "Alecto cried over the rice, so she didn't get it. Crying doesn't get you what you want."

"Yes it does," Alecto countered. It was true that if she cried over something while Maisie and Amycus were around, she always got it. But Les didn't want her or any of the younger children thinking that was acceptable behavior.

"No it doesn't," Sev said. "Mummy said so."

Sensing an argument beginning, Les interrupted them and got everyone's attention back on Barty, who politely asked Scabior to look outside and tell everyone what the weather looked like. He stood by the window for a few moments, then returned and said, "The sun's out. Make it go away."

"Well, Scabior, we can't exactly make the sun go away," said Les. "We can hope it goes behind a cloud, but I suppose that's it."

Circle time went well overall until Scabior decided this was the perfect time to start snatching things. He'd taken Newt's plush niffler and Alecto's chew toy before Les stopped him and returned the stolen items before their owners began to cry. By the time she and Barty had gotten everyone settled down again, it was clear circle time had overstayed its welcome.

Perhaps it might be a better idea to have lunch.

-x-

Barty and Les got everyone situated at the table for lunch. As soon as their lunches were placed in front of them, Sev and Draco began trading the contents with one another. "Sev, you can't take Draco's crackers and give him your fruit cup. I packed you that for a reason!" Les was exasperated as she gave Draco his crackers back.

Newt and Scabior, who sat together, had decided they liked one another. Newt was even telling the plush niffler how much he was going to love his new friend.

Harry was much more interested in Barty than the other children. As he ate, he kept asking him to come over so that they could talk. Barty learned more about Harry's mummy, their house, and what they had done the previous day than he ever wanted to know.

There were no real issues with Credence besides him feeding a few bites to Nagini when no one appeared to be looking. Les eventually saw him out of the corner of her eye as she helped Harry clean up his spilled milk and brought Credence a separate plate so both could eat in peace.

After giving Nagini a cupcake that Credence had brought for her, Les turned her attention to Alecto. She wondered why she'd been so calm through the whole meal.

Peeking into the shiny bag Maisie had packed for Alecto, Les found a leftover roasted Muggle sandwich and several large, shiny cookies. A few more cookies had clearly been eaten, judging from the crumbs on the table and in Alecto's lap.

"Alecto," She looked up at the sound of her name, then returned to her cookie. "I think you've had enough cookies. Why don't you eat this?" Les offered her the roasted Muggle sandwich.

Alecto thought about it. She did like roasted Muggle sandwiches. It was easy to eat them while playing with rice, and even the leftovers tasted pretty good. But at the same time, she liked cookies better.

"No. I'd rather have a cookie." she decided.

"But if you eat the sandwich," Les said. "then that's over with and you can eat some more cookies."

A smile spread across Alecto's face. She hadn't thought of it that way. When Les offered the sandwich again, she took it.

-x-

After lunch, everyone seemed to grow especially active. They were going to put together a craft, but Newt's niffler got ahold of the shiny paper and began tearing it into confetti. Sev and Harry joined in, and Harry was dumping shiny scraps onto Credence's head when Les swooped in and took them away.

Without anything else to do, she and Barty moved on to their next activity, which was story time. Barty selected the book and gathered the children around him.

Surrounded by several children, two adults, and a large snake, he began to read.

In his opinion, the book was terrible. It was about the adventures of a family of raccoons. The children had no problem with it, but as a Death Eater, it was the most boring thing he had ever laid eyes on. He wanted to just toss the book in the trash and be done with it, but when he saw little Sev, interested and paying rapt attention, he sighed and continued telling the story of how the raccoons went out to a restaurant. The kids looked entertained. Alecto looked like she was getting ideas.

"When they sat down, Rita Raccoon immediately put her napkin on her head," Everyone giggled. Barty groaned internally. "Ricky Raccoon copied her, even though their parents said not to. As a result, they didn't get to have dessert."

Scabior took a tissue and put it on his own head, much to the amusement of Newt and Draco. Before long all of the little kids sported new headwear. Credence had a tissue too. Alecto tried to bite Draco when he leaned in to place one on her head, so they skipped that.

"Their food came. Rita Raccoon had ordered rice, but when she took a bite she discovered she didn't particularly like it. She took a few grains and threw them at Ricky."

"Like Awecto!" said Severus.

No one could argue with that.

The book after that was much less entertaining, which was a good thing, as after story time came naptime. It was the kind of book small children tended to find boring, and the ones Barty was reading to were no exception. Within minutes, a few began to yawn.

"Okay," he said once he finished the book. "Time to rest our eyes."

He and Les set out some mats for the children to rest on. Credence, using Nagini as a pillow, fell asleep almost immediately. Both Harry and Draco protested that they weren't tired, but were also asleep in minutes.

The others weren't so cooperative.

When Les refused to let Alecto use naptime as playing-with-rice time, she threw herself onto the floor, in the throes of her second tantrum of the day. She cried hard enough to wake Draco up (which set him off as well) and scare Severus, who clung to his mother until Alecto's fit was over. The good news was that the tantrum tired Alecto out, and shortly afterward she fell asleep.

Once Draco and Severus were calmed down and put back to sleep, Les asked Newt and Scabior to come over and lie down on their mats. "You can sleep or lie quietly, but you must remain on your mat until naptime is over," she told them.

Ten minutes later, Les surveyed the group. Everyone slept, except for Scabior, who was clearly pretending to be asleep and hoping Les wouldn't notice. She pretended not to.

She and Barty sat down at the small table. Perhaps they could talk for a bit before the children woke up.

"Hi, auntie Les!"

Harry beamed excitedly as he looked up at Les, who softly shook her head as she shifted to regard him. It seemed she and Barty wouldn't get a break after all.

-x-

With less than an hour left until parents arrived, Barty decided to just let the children play. Sitting beside Les, he glanced up occasionally to make sure nothing strange was going on. "They're little kids, Barty. You have to keep a closer eye on them." Les told him.

"They're fine, they're fine."

Meanwhile, Severus remembered the book his father had read for story time, the one with the family of raccoons. Suddenly, he got an idea. Sev wandered over to where Alecto played with her rice and whispered into her ear.

The bell rang. Lils had arrived to collect Harry. Harry, who had...

"Is that rice in his hair, Les?" she asked, looking through Harry's hair and removing what was clearly long grain rice.

"Yes, it's rice," Les agreed. "But I don't know where Harry even got the rice"

"Les," Barty cut in. "you might want to look at this."

As expected, Alecto was throwing rice. But she wasn't alone. As Les peeked over the partition, she heard Draco say, "I fink Awecto's waist needs my help," as he threw a handful of rice at it. She retaliated. Even Credence had joined in. Newt tried to hide under his niffler, but it wasn't enough to cover him.

"What is going on here?" Les asked as Scabior gave her a rice bath.

"Rice fight!" exclaimed Severus, tossing a few grains at Credence.

"Why are you having a rice fight?" Barty ducked to avoid the rice. It didn't work.

"Because rice is nice," Alecto responded. She reached into her bag, and Barty wound up with rice up his nose.

When Tassie came for Newt, Les said, "They had a rice fight," before she could ask why her son was covered in rice.

"A rice fight?"

"Don't ask."

Just as Tassie left, Ella arrived with Thorfinn. The first thing she said when Draco ran out to greet her was, "Did Alecto do this?"

"She...contributed."

While Les and Ella talked, Thorfinn asked Draco, "What happened with the rice, Draco?"

"Daddy, I only throwed the wice at Awecto because her waist needed my help."

"You threw rice at Alecto?"

"She throwed it at me first."

Les and Barty used a spell to put most of the rice back into Alecto's bag. Now that the rice fight had concluded, she sat on the floor nibbling a few stray grains before exclaiming, "Auntie Dragon!"

As Dragon entered the daycare center, Credence removed the rice from his hair and gave it back to Alecto before returning to his adoptive mother, the rice-dotted Nagini slithering alongside him. "I see Alecto had a bit of fun with her rice."

Les nodded. "I suppose I owe an apology. There were no explosions or snakebites of any kind."

"Good to know," Dragon talked to Alecto for a few moments, then scooped up the slightly dismayed Scabior, took Credence's hand, and led them away.

Last to arrive were Maisie and Amycus. When Amycus picked Alecto up and asked her how her day was, she threw a handful of rice at him.

"No more rice-throwing," muttered Les. "No more cleaning up rice."

"She behaved herself?" Maisie inquired.

Les thought about the rice fight, Alecto's resistance to nonpreferred activities, and both tantrums she'd thrown and found herself saying, "She was an absolute angel."

"As always," Maisie cooed fondly. "We'll have to do this again sometime."

It was all Les could do not to shout, "NO!"

-end-


End file.
